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You’re neither alone nor oppressed

Crystal Moore, 23 year veteran of the Latta PD. Former Police Chief. Lesbian<—–irrelevant fact Unless you’re the Mayor of Latta then it’s relevant. Even though it has no impact on job performance.

Grrr…

It’s 2014. After 23 years serving on the Latta, South Carolina Police Department, Crystal Moore found herself fired from her job. She had managed to work her way up to police chief and was the first woman police chief of Latta. During her time as Chief of Latta Police, she received numerous compliments and by all indications, performed her duties quite well. None of that mattered in the eyes of the CIty Council. Nope. She was fired for being a lesbian.

Earlier this year, Jameka Evans was forced to leave her job as a security guard at Georgia Regional Hospital bc, in addition to her refusal to dress in manner that conformed with stereotypical gender roles, she is a lesbian. She tried to sue her former employer. Both a lower court and the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against her.

Hollis Bulleit, former brand ambassador for Bulleit Bourbon. Also a lesbian. A fact that should be utterly irrelevant to her job performance, but which was apparently enough reason for her family to treat her like shit, treat her partner Cher even worse, and lead to them kicking her out of the company. That family seems nice.

More recently, Hollis Bulleit, daughter of Tom Bulleit–founder of Bulleit Bourbon–opened up about the circumstances that led to her departure from Diageo, one of the largest alcoholic beverage producers in the world, and owner of Bulleit Bourbon. In a series of Facebook posts, Hollis Bulleit, who is far from a stranger in the alcoholic beverage industry, revealed that she was pushed out of her job bc, drumroll…she’s gay (that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the homophobia she experienced over the 10 years since she came out to her family).

If you’re queer and you live in the United States, your job is not as secure as you think (here are 5 more people fired for their sexuality). Hell, not just your job–your home is not as secure as you think. Neither is your ability to partake of public services like restaurants or hotels. As of 2017, only 21 states (and D.C.) have statewide non-discrimination protections in place for LGB people (of that number, only 19 offer protections based on sexuality and gender identity). Discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is very real and collectively, queer people suffer bc of that.

The discrimination we face begins at a young age. The social stigma faced by queer youth is enormous. Familial rejection. Rejection by religious organizations. Bullying in schools. Homelessness. Alone, any one of those challenges can be damn near insurmountable for many queer youth, but to have to face more than one? It can seem virtually impossible. And the stress such discrimination places upon queer youth can adversely affect their mental and physical health.

To my surprise (and probably many readers), we are not alone in our struggles. The stress we face. The oppression we endure. The discrimination dealt with. It’s not just we who have problems. There’s one group that seems to think they suffer as much as we do…that they face discrimination on par with the shit we have to put up with. Watch the following video, Not Alone (if you can stomach it without throwing anything at your computer or wailing so loudly that you shatter your screen and torment your pets), and see for yourself just how rough these people have it:

Oh gosh.
These poor, poor people. So nervous about letting people know that you’re a bigot. Oh, oops. My bad. I forgot that “bigot is a huge word that gets thrown around”.

…

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MAYBE IT GETS THROWN AROUND BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE DISCRIMINATORY BIGOTED SHITSTAINS.

Ok, that’s out of my system.

Not really.

From the get go, I wanted to smack everyone involved in this video. I should have known that a video made by a political group called Catholic Vote would be head-bashingly frustrating. Just listen to the score. It almost has that feel of a coming out video. And look at the confessional approach they used in the video. Very somber. Very “I’m about to reveal some deeply intimate aspect of myself that I worry will not be received well”. In fact, the creators of this insipid, insulting, piece of dreck almost certainly said “let’s aim for the same tone as videos in which LGBT people come out. Let’s tap into that same emotion.”

Again: bigoted. Shitstains.

Let me set the record completely straight for these straight fuckfaces: YOU DO NOT EXPERIENCE DISCRIMINATION BASED ON YOUR SEXUALITY OR YOUR GENDER IDENTITY. That is not a thing that exists in the United States to any significant degree (yeah, I’m hedging my bets, bc there’s probably some dude, somewhere, who was fired from a gay bar bc he was heterosexual). And spare me the weepy-eyed, sad-sack attempt to make people empathize with the difficulties you face trying to tell people that you don’t think I should be able to get married. You’re facing criticism. Nothing more. You’re not facing repercussions like being ostracized from your family or church. Or kicked out of your homes and fired from your jobs. Last I checked (which was at the beginning of this post), WE are the ones who face discrimination and oppression. I’ve yet to see any statistically significant number of anti-cis or anti-hetero discrimination occur in this country.

Oh, and your opinion on same-sex marriage is not the taboo that this tug on your heartstrings video would have viewers believe. Yes, same-sex marriage is accepted by the majority of the people in this country, and while that’s impressive (and the number has gone up over the years), there’s still 32% of the country that doesn’t support same-sex marriage. With population of roughly 326 million, that means approximately 104 million people do not support same-sex marriage (and despite the seemingly well-deserved reputation, not all these people hail from the backwards-ass Southern states). Yeah, it must be so, so hard to find like-minded people that share your “queers shouldn’t get married” opinion.

Pfft. Y’all are not alone.

Speaking of that right, I dearly wish you bigoted shitwickets would learn that marriage is an institution that has long existed in many forms. Contrary to the extremely ignorant thinking of, well, pretty much everyone involved in the making of Not Alone, not only are there currently many different typesof marriage around the world, but marriage has gone through various permutations for as long as the concept has existed. It has never meant only the union of one man and one woman. Perhaps if you chucklefucks would pull your heads out of your Bibles or your asses, you might learn a fact or twenty. Or, if you’d prefer to keep you heads in the Bible, then learn to read it in its entirety. Or you can let Betty Bowers do the educating:

I’d like to state for the record that while I have a deep and abiding contempt for people who think same-sex marriage should be illegal, the people who feel this way are of course within their rights to think that. Just as I’m well within my right to express my disdain for those views if I’m in earshot. And that right there is the core problem the makers of Not Alone have–just like the whiny anti-PC crowd, they don’t like the idea that their opinions get challenged. They don’t like the fact that marginalized people have voices and platforms to speak their mind. They wish the clock would turn back many decades to the time when we queer people couldn’t criticize them bc we didn’t have social media or the means to express our outrage in real time. Hell, not only that, but their social and political cred was so enormous back in the 40s or 50s, while ours was so low that for the most part, we didn’t dare voice our opinions for fear of being ostracized from our families at best, and committed to asylums where they would perform lobotomies on us at worst.

In any case, these bigots–yes, y’all are bigots–are going to either have to learn or, well, I don’t really give a shit. There’s no turning back (short of a nuclear war that devastates the globe, or something that wipes out all technology and thankfully, we don’t live in a science fiction world). What’s really funny is that these are the same people who whine and moan about us being “special snowflakes”, when they can’t even handle a simple FUCK YOU in response to their “marriage is between one man and one woman” bullshit.

9 thoughts on “You’re neither alone nor oppressed”

I have noticed that with every bump in technology, there’s a corresponding bump in social justice activism , and the backlash that accompanies that.

The portable cameras of the sixties were able to capture white people being bigoted to Blacks during their marches, in real time, and now we have social media, and video evidence ( which mostly didn’t exist like this in the nineties) propelling social activism.

The privileged have always fought against inclusion. White people have always been wrong about race, and everyone else. Thirty years from now you’ll have those same people sitting around claiming they were on the right side of history, just like the assholes today who claim to have been present at MLKs most famous speeches.

I am so sorry those assweasels are in your face with their bigotted bullshit.

These bigotted assholes are ramping up their bigotry in Australia, too.

Our shitty conservative government wants to hold a voluntary postal-only non-binding unless it is anti-equality, opinion ballot (ie the equivalent of an internet poll, which they will ignore if it doesn’t say what they want). It will cost $122 million. It is basically a stunt to push off a parliamentary vote about marriage equality. It is also giving the bigots excuses to shout their bigotry from the rooftops, including uber-bigot and ex PM, Tony Abbott, who has been saying things like, “if you are anti-PC vote No.”

The majority here are pro-equal marriage. The majority of parliamentarians are pro-equal marriage. Our PM is a spineless sphincter who is apparenly personally pro-equal marriage, but willing to throw LGBTQI Aussies under the bus to appease bigots of all types.

I am so sorry both our countries have so many nasty, cruel homphobes in high places.

Hello, Tony! and hello to all. I’ve been been absent again due to the slings and arrows of other people’s foibles multiplied by my own. I managed to navigate back here because I have my 0wn internet connection for the first time in a long time. FireFox remembered and, well, here I is.

Tony!, it’s good, very good, to see that your site is still up and active. I was worried that I’d try the door and find it locked.

I do have some stories to tell and good news to relate. Life has been brutal but I am Tested Tough and am still here to tell you about it.

It’s late and this may not be the right thread so I’ll just leave this greeting here along with some snacks and pillows for you all.

So nice to be back. Catching up will take a while. Still and all, life is a wonderful, if also frightful, excursion into the parts of the universe that I am able to see and comment on. I’ll be back tomorrow and this time I think I’ll be staying for a while.

Tony,
Kudos to you and your article about women and decency. I agree but I also would like to see that “decency” go beyond just women. I like to see women treat men who show “decency” with “decency”. In fact, I’d like to see decency flow like water, where ever it can and between all human beings regardless of race, color, creed, sexual orientation, disability, or any of that. Let’s get back to the basics; the things that really matter and can really have a positive impact on our world today. By the basics I mean respect and decency. Let’s just treat each other!!!!! Can we??